Way-in | Way-out

This is the story of my life.

I am the elder of two sisters. My family could be the poster child of the family campaign in the 1970s— two sisters sharing an umbrella in the rain. Two is enough, even when the two are girls. In China, one is enough. I wonder how they bear the burden of elderly parents over there. Not that it makes a difference to me, since my sister is married overseas and I am here alone. But I ramble, the point of this story is this: my story is everybody's story.

It is a story of identity, of love lost and found, of God, of family, of friends. I am only thirty years old this year. I've lived for only half as long as my parents. If my grandparents were still alive, I would have lived only a third of their years, but we have stopped counting the years for them. When you die, you stop counting. Your fingernails keep growing, but not in Singapore, because we cremate our dead over here. Nothing keeps growing after death, not here any way. Maybe if you're overseas, you could be fertilizer for grass or a tree or something, but not here. Over here, your next-of-kin will huddle around a pink plastic box and pick out in order: thigh bone, collar bone, skull; then stick you in an urn so that you will be the right-way-up. Then, depending on your religion, you'll either be carried out by the first male next-of-kin under a paper umbrella or you'll be carried out without any ceremony at all, and then placed right-way-up beside a row of other right-way-up dead people. All our skulls point to heaven. Where did the heart fly off to?

But I am getting ahead of myself. That is where I will end up, but for now, I live in a concrete room, stacked on top of 17 other families and underneath two. I have a lovely view of the port — that is the port with the deep natural harbour; the railway station that sits on Malaysia land, and a lovely expressway that rumbles with traffic day-in day-out. (I know that day in is two words. Pooh says "Way-in" and "Way-out". It makes more sense that way. Life is a turnstile with two signs: "way-in" dayindayout "way-out".)

Being depressed is a bad way to start a story.

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CHAPTER TWO: Where mis_nomer tries to think about happier things

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CHAPTER THREE: Which comes after chapter two, where she reminds readers that she really does have a story to tell